quote:

If it were me in your position, I would also still lease at this time and I'll be banking on a recession to bring house prices and interest rates down.

I agree on the possibility of a recession but today's interest rates are still very reasonable, by historic standards. My first home purchase was towards the end of the stagflation/Jimmy Carter days.

The last few administrations have manipulated the market badly, in my view. Each had some crisis to justify monetary policy, first 9/11, then the 08 meltdown, then Covid shutdowns, etc.

The problem is that when there was always another election on the horizon and the economy was booming, they didn't want to cause a slowdown risking their election by raising rates, even though it was warranted.

So now they've been forced to make a more abrupt change. Most people think these are high rates and can't do anything. Their lifestyle and home budget are all based on below 4% rates now and few can make a move. Many are also carrying high credit card rates that float.

The next few years should be interesting.

I would keep house costs and payments manageable but wouldn’t defer buying based on rates alone. In most markets the costs of buying or building are still increasing at or near interest rates and you do get to live there instead of paying rent to someone else.

We are about to build our retirement home at what looks like a crazy time at a glance. Costs and interest high.

When rates drop back down you and I both can easily refinance to get at a lower rate, and will have locked in the cost of the underlying home at 2023 costs, not that plus inflation for the next 2-4 years.

If the market or your outlook give you real expectations of reductions, not just stabilization, of prices then by all means defer purchase. That just feels like a real gamble given real estate trends in many areas over a long period.

I appreciate all the replies. I'm reading and weighing things.

A few points of clarification:

We have a realtor we've been working with since before we moved.

We do intend to stay here long-term unless something unforeseen happens.

quote:

Originally posted by SigLaw:
I will comment from the point of view of someone that lives in Gilbert. Don't move to Gilbert unless the immediate area is built out and you are okay with it. Building is fast and furious in Gilbert with a lot of new apartment buildings and it sucks, too many people, too many cars. Eastmark (we have friends that live there) and it is no different, actually worse as it is all brand new and they just keep building and the roads are already overwhelmed and they are not done. Same applies to Queen Creek, father in law lives there, and it is much like Eastmark. All brand new and outpacing the inferstructure.

I would try the "older" neighborhoods of Chandler or Gilbert. There are also some nicer areas of Mesa that you may want to look into.

Good luck.

This is fantastic input, thank you. Yeah, the first time we looked in Eastmark, I told the realtors I didn't want to live there. It reminded me of early 2000's Rockledge, FL. Same thing - lots of newer houses and new development, zero infrastructure. We've gotten more flexible on that, but some of the houses we've gone to look at, it's exactly what you say: unfinished roads and construction zones that we commented were probably choked with traffic at busy parts of the day.

I do like Gilbert. It's generally nice and clean, I feel pretty safe here. It feels a lot less ghetto than Mesa. Well, most of it. We may look at little closer at Chandler. I'd really like to find a nice place in Usury Mountain or Las Sendas, but the places we've looked at that we could afford, my wife absolutely hated the layouts. At least there, there's decent infrastructure around there with Apache Junction and North Mesa, and it's not like there's anywhere past that to really expand to, you hit the mountain peak and that's that, it's all regional and state parks. I wouldn't mind being out on the edge of things, but you kinda hit on why that wouldn't be a great thing in Eastmark or Queen Creek.

This is a weird real estate and very localized.

In many places, the market is dropping.

This is mostly due to high-interest rates and people migrating.

A few markets are even rising due to NO inventory.

People have no place to move to so are not moving.

People are not giving up their 2 to 3 % mortgages for higher rates to move.

All real estate and politics are local.

Pick a place you want to live and check the market. Is it stagnant going up or down?

Going down, wait, stagnant, or going up buy now if you can find something you like.

With our segment of the market heating back up despite interest rates, we told our realtors we wanted to start looking in earnest again about a month ago. Inventory is low, good houses are moving quickly.

My wife got hung up on this idea that I should enter every house the realtors sent us into a fucking spreadsheet with I kid you not, 21 columns worth of metrics. The engineer in her kept hammering on about how important it was until I flatly told her I thought it was stupid and I wasn't going to do it.

Saturday, I settled in for a day of looking at houses online and weeded through the ones the realtor sent me as losers for whatever reason and decided to take a look at "the spreadsheet." All the houses my wife spent all this time researching stuff like school rankings for elementary through high school and drive distances to work, comments on what she thought were all either under contract or pending. Fantastic use of her time. There's one house on the list that has zero input in any of the columns, so I click on the link and it immediately grabs me as "this is the one." I sent our realtor a text and told them I was really interested in it, and gave them four or five more "maybes" in case we scheduled something and the inevitable "so before we go inside, I just want to tell you they got an offer this morning" routine."

We looked at it yesterday and had a few things we were unsure about, then break for lunch because Father's Day, then another place in the afternoon. The place we looked at after lunch was nice, but too much for what it was. I asked the realtors if we could look at the one I liked again. They made a phone call and we drove up. On second look, it was clear the things we were unsure about were not going to be an issue, so we stepped outside and talked it over in the driveway and got the ball rolling on an offer. Realtor called me this afternoon to say they accepted our offer outright. The inspection is Friday, and we close the first week of August.

My head is spinning and it hasn't really sunk in yet, but after a year of looking at houses here, we finally found a place we both like, that had nearly everything we wanted, plus some bonus things that should work out really nice for the family at the price we sold our last home for. I think renting a smaller house than we were looking for really helped dial in our expectations and show us what our needs are vs our wants.

I know a lot of things can go sideways between now and closing so I don't wanna jinx it, but it will be really nice to finally move into a place that's ours after a year of living out of suitcases and boxes. Thanks for the input, guys. Helped get me down off the fence and get it going.

hope it works out and all the work pays off. the road traveled can be worth it.

Nice...Good things come to those who wait! Hope everything goes smooth and your new family home meets all expectations!

Ed, stoked you guys found a home. That’s pretty fantastic. I know how crappy it can be to search and search and never find what you want.
Congratulations!

Glad to hear it worked out for you. House buying can be incredibly stressful, especially in a hot market where everything is moving at lightning speed.

We went through this exercise a year ago when we relocated to the Tucson market. All told, from the time we made the decision to sell our Montana place until we moved into our new place, a little over a year passed. That wasn't an issue as we're retired but it was stressful.

But........I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Congratulations.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

I know a lot of things can go sideways between now and closing so I don't wanna jinx it, but it will be really nice to finally move into a place that's ours after a year of living out of suitcases and boxes. Thanks for the input, guys. Helped get me down off the fence and get it going.

Please don't go crazy between now and closing and make any big purchases that could affect your credit score and nix the deal. You stated you sold a home already so I'm sure you already know all about this.

Our finance guy who helped us with our home sale within a 35 day window in order to turn around and do an estate sale purchase of another home said something like "Between NOW and THEN, I don't want you buying anything more than a stick of gum!"

Thanks, guys!

Yeah, we both have really good credit, but all spending is locked down to the essentials.

Along with that, don't deposit any money between now and closing, other than regular stuff like your paycheck. You have to account for every bit of money coming in to your bank account, apparently part of the strict rules meant to prevent things like money laundering via real estate.

And it's not just really large amounts. When I was selling my house and buying a new one concurrently in 2020, I had to write a last-minute justification letter to my loan officer to explain a $400 check I deposited in my bank account from selling a kayak to a friend. Even something that small and inconsequential got flagged during the final audit in the run-up to closing.

Interesting. I'm assuming that means anything outside of normal direct deposit from work?

I guess I'll move some guitar gear on the local free ads to gain a little liquidity just in case.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Interesting. I'm assuming that means anything outside of normal direct deposit from work?

I guess I'll move some guitar gear on the local free ads to gain a little liquidity just in case.

Yes. Rogue is spot on. The very last viewing of our financials, they had questions for some silly, small (under a hundred bucks) deposits.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
The very last viewing of our financials, they had questions for some silly, small (under a hundred bucks) deposits.

Wow.

Honestly, this kind of shit pisses me off. The nepotism in our political system allows stuff like the Biden family and yet people like you and me get our underwear sniffed because "money laundering." Inescapable and entirely pervasive. This is not what our founding fathers intended.

I just texted the wife and she confirmed that everything besides paychecks is cash or credit, we don't do debit and we don't ever deal with personal checks. I had some stuff I was going to sell online, but I may hold off on that. Anyone know if they look at Paypal? If not, I'll just continue as usual and let the money sit in Paypal if stuff sells.

They never looked into my Paypal/Venmo/etc., just actual bank accounts. But that was 3 years ago. And it's my understanding that there have been certain changes in recent years on how payment services like Paypal are treated, being held to many of the same standards as banks nowadays. So the situation may have changed since, and they might now be considered "bank accounts" for real estate auditing purposes.

Ask your lender.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I guess I'll move some guitar gear on the local free ads to gain a little liquidity just in case.

Any Tele pickups?

What part of town is it in? (Just pre-planning the commute to the house-warming party)… Congrats!

Todd

I live near Rey hrh and was at his house a couple weeks ago. We like in the Prescott Valley AZ area, and since we moved here in 2015, the housing market has been crazy.
When we first moved we were not sure for 100% it was going to be our long term location. We initially rented ( great neighborhood and landlord, and rent wasn’t too crazy)
But a couple years ago ( when the housing market was crazy houses usually going for tens of thousands over list price and gone in less than 24 hours) our landlord told us he plans to sell and we have until end of lease to move ( he let us know in late July which gave us until end of October) we lucked out. Neighborhood adjacent to the current one, put a bid under list which was accepted and things went very smoothly.
Ironically our old landlord wouldn’t budge on his asking price, despite some significant flaws in the house that would need attention. He is still sitting on it 18 months later.
A dear friend of ours has a breathtaking country home and decided to sell ( big property and as they age getting hard to take care of and health issues) and we all figured it would be a quick sale. It has been on market since thanksgiving!

Housing market can be very fickle